My very first computer was a commodore64. I could program a little basic so I wrote some old school adventures and I could squeeze some music out of the mighty sid chip. later my dad got me an Amiga500. It got way better graphics, but even more important: it could run Protracker; a four channel music program which could trigger samples at different speeds. Professional samplers where way out of my financial reach back then, so this was the best alternative I could ever wished for.

I started ripping samples from other songs, and collect them on 3½-inch floppy discs. My songs got better and better, I did some covers and some originals, but those discs are either broken, or not in my possession anymore. The finished song saved on floppydiscs as mod-files. Up to this date the tracker program is being used , mostly for programming dance/electro tunes, but as always, there are exceptions.

Flashforward 18 years.

I’ve read a blogpost yesterday about a mod-player for the iPhone which connected to the Modland library, a huge collection of tracker mods. Here comes the ego-surf: I could only remember one title from the things I made back then so I googled for ‘Pindakaas.mod’

Boom! That file was almost everywhere, downloaded the file, installed cocomodx (a free modplayer for osx) and presto I got sucked back 18 years.

Back in 1991 the demoscene was all over the place. If I remember correctly the demoscene was all about testing the limits of the platforms they where programming for. With huge bouncing logo’s and ultra cool music they where showing off to each other. (or perhaps still do).

I was about 17 years old, couldn’t program a single line on the amiga and couldn’t draw. The only thing I did was pumping out weird mod’s (I remember doing a pretty realistic tiroler track, but I don’t think I ever finished it.)

Me and some amiga-buddies organized a 24-hour party. We ordered ourselves to eat pizza and come up with something creative within the next 24 hours. We copied a few games, ate a lot of crisps and listened to MTV screaming through the room. I don’t remember what city it was, I only remember a few friends who where there, but I remember one guy producing a realistic drawing on his amiga and me sitting in the corner with my headphones making a track.

I brought some cd’s, and one of them was from ‘Rubberen Robbie’, a novelty record with funny fake adds. On that CD where a few tracks about peanutbutter (pindakaas).I sampled some vocals from that CD, produced a little beat, grabbed a bas-sample from my disc-library, and finished it of with a male chorus singing ‘Pindakaas!’. When I turned up the volume on my little TV, the room was shaking from laughter.

Within the next hours my goal was to make a few friends smile every now and then, when I made a few more choruses to the song. I chose to use the ‘Opa’-sample (that means ‘grandpa) to play dutch songs I could think of from the top of my head, so we could sing along.

I don’t recall ever copying this disc or the song appearing on any demo, yet a few months later I heard a rumour that my track had been played as a demo on a computer-fare. Also I heard it appeared on a music compilation disc, but I never saw that. Also I ran into a forum from a few months ago where someone was asking: “Who the Hell made this track?”

Back in the day my computer-nickname was ‘Graveyard’ (don’t ask), my amiga-group just made a few demo’s as I recall (the lost boys) but I think even that name was ripped out of the track, so you guys must take my word for it

Here are the original mod-files:
Pindakaas.mod (originally called ‘pindakaa.mod’ since the ol’amiga could only handle 8 digit files)
tlb.oriental.mod

For you ‘normal’ people without a tracker player:
The following tracks end abruptly, but that is due to the nature of mods; they repeat over and over and over again.

Pindakaas – 3:04

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TLB-Oriental – 1:16

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